Press-release_Les-Commandos-Percu

Les Commandos Percu
Press release
(c) S. Henriques

SILENCE! creation 2017
Les Commandos Percu
« a possessed trance toward an ultimate
point : enjoying the silence »
This is the silence before the storm. Who can explain this obscured
horizon? Someone shouts Silence ! Time is suspended now, all is
frozen. The slow muffled rolling of the drums rises from the depths
becoming a deafening noise. A rain of metal fills the air, sheet
lightning overwhelms the sky.
Silence ! will be made of 2 parts, a procession and a final
on a fixed set.
« How to create when the world collapses around us and there is nothing left ? How can ingenuity be an
answer to coercion? Our challenge is not to turn Les Commandos Percu into the first post-apocalyptic band of
percussion but to go back to our basics : observing, recycling material and the sounds of the world to reinvent
a lively and personified music.
Then comes a reaction to the abundance of technology surrounding us and making us wonder what is the
meaning of performing a live show with flesh and sweat? We always look for answers in fire because it is
deeply linked to human beings history. Until now we had the feeling that our shows were asking “which side
of fire are you on ?”. Today we are asking “where is fire going to?”.
What we are looking for is an exhilarating wildness, a genuine and essential joy. »
Raymond Gabriel - artistic director
CREATION WORKSHOPS :
16 to 27 January 2017 : Big Drum, Toulouse FR
17 to 22 April 2017 : Festival International des
arts de la rue de Chassepierre BE
26 to 29 April 2017 : Le Rio Grande - Scène de
Musiques Actuelles, Montauban FR
To be confirmed ....
Théâtre le Liburnia - Fest’Arts / « L’Abattoir » à Chalon-sur-
Saône - Festival Chalon dans la Rue.
Dressed up with metal, musicians move forward amongst a blinding
din. Coloured bodies and layered pieces of metal form a moving
shape with sharp angles forcing itself into the audience.
Powerful rhythms intersperse with silence creating a tension that
will not fade. Along the path, procession will stop to create collective
sculptures forms which spring lights and sounds before moving
forward again in a relentless move. Nothing will stop this oscillating
human machine, bodies progressing in unison with the rhythms
At the end of the route musicians and pyrotechnicians will reach
a fixed set evoking a mountain of metal. Viewing angle from the
audience is wide, almost circular around the stage. Characters
invade this strange space as one exploring a new territory, covered
with metals and items that endlessly need to be pushed away,
reorganised, transformed. Anything is good for action. The limit
between chaos and music is thin.
What seems to be a countdown, or maybe a clock telling hours,
creates a spiral of tension and surprises.
Objects and fire manipulation, percussion playing on and on,
exploring what appears to be a gigantic musical instruments creating
a possessed trance toward an ultimate point : enjoying the silence.
A dazzling finale releases accumulated tensions with an astounding
wave of energy. The mountain became a volcano, a huge bonfire.
Now characters are liberated as well, like miners, cleared out from
their metal constraint, sharing the silence, coming back, as one
comes back to the light.
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS :
> outdoor - night time
> team of 7 artists and 2 technicians
> procession followed by a final on a fixed set
> duration about 40-45 min
> audience : several thousand people
> technical rider being created currently : 2 options will be
offered with an acoustic set or a full sound and light system
> fireworks safety area is located near the rear area of the stage

Les Commandos Percu & Deabru Beltzak
DANBOR TALKA
Clash of Drums
Danbor Talka - Festival Chalon dans la Rue Clash of Drums - Rugby World Cup UK Technical rider (pdf)
After many years spent traveling the world with their amazing drum and firework shows, the Basque company DEABRU BELTZAK
and the French company LES COMMANDOS PERCU combine their talents and know-how with a clear objective: to reclaim the
streets.
Movement, rhythm, fire. These three words indicate the common background of the two companies, each revealing their culture
and their history. Approximation does not eliminate differences; on the contrary : symbolic confrontation becomes shared energy.
Aesthetic of form, the art of surprise, fireworks, proximity in motion: contact with the public is total.
Collision, friction, percussion. There are many ways to make fire: the clash of drums produces sparks, communicative warmth, a wild
whirlwind of colours & aromas.
« The two tribes meet in a cataclysmic collision of
fast and frenzied drumming. »
MILTON KEYNES CITIZEN
This show evokes the clash of cultures, the need to talk, a common song invented. A warm-hearted show of interaction and sharing.
• • • REFERENCES : Rendez-vous étudiants in Aurillac • Luton Arts in Luton (UK) • CAST à Doncaster (UK) • Grande Marée in St Nazaire •
Greenwich & Dockland International Festival in London (UK) • River of Light in Liverpool (UK) • Fest’Arts in Libourne • Festival Bilboko Kalealdia in
Bilbao (ES) • Rugby World Cup in Milton Keynes & Newcastle (UK) • Festival Chalon dans la Rue in Chalon sur Saône • Paléo Festival in Nyon (SZ) • Viva
Cité in Sotteville les Rouen • Festival Toulouse d’Eté in Toulouse • Centre culturel de Warande in Turnhout (BE) • Festival Cour et Jardin in Champigny
• Festival la Sarre à Contes in Sarralbe • Derby Festé in Derby (UK) • Festival des Arts de la Rue Orly in Fête • Les Antoniades in Flobecq (BE) • • •
Night-time - outdoor
Duration : 50 min
Audience : several thousand people
(c) www.eventdigital.co.uk
• Parade : 20 min
Out of nowhere, drummers march towards each other pounding
stretched skins. Street to street, their drumsticks twirl, their
colourful faces sizing each other up for a confrontation of rhythm
and light. What will be the outcome of the clash? The sole purpose
of this symbolic confrontation is to turn collision into interaction,
to sublimate fury into language, to light the unifying fire that
brings hearts together.
• Fixed set : 30 min
At the end of this wild parade through crowded streets, the
blazing musicians climb onto the stage for a clash of drums. They
light a huge fire that seems to burst from their instruments, as if
every percussion note sparks an explosion in the starry sky. But
this is just a transition point. The black and yellow devils again
take to the street and disappear just as they came : surrounded
by fire.
DANBOR TALKA / Le Choc des Tambours is a coproduction : Production Big Drum, Dis Dis
Producciones, Mairie de Libourne – Service Festivités et Actions Culturelles et le festival
Fest’Arts, L’Abattoir – Centre National des Arts de la Rue – Ville de Chalon sur Saône,
Lekeitio Festival Internacional de Teatro de Calle, Le Fourneau – Centre National des Arts
de la Rue – Brest.
Funded by : L’Institut Français, la Ville de Toulouse, le Conseil Général de la Haute Garonne
et la Région Midi-Pyrénées.
(c) www.eventdigital.co.uk

Le Concert de Feu
Neither a firework display nor a concert, Le Concert de Feu places the element of fire at the centre of artistic
expression. Les Commandos Percu have travelled the world and discovered that there is a common rhythmical
language through all cultures, a universal music felt in the gut. Driven onward by the drums and the
clamour of the audience it becomes a huge fire.
A wave of sparkles spreads amongst the audience.
Fire sharing is one of the great moments of the show. Les Commandos Percu distribute hundreds of magic
sparklers to the audience, each one becoming a star. Depending on the project, it is also possible to involve people from the community
in this set.
“Let the fire burn, let the bodies dance.”
Dance has always been a core part of Les Commandos Percu’s work. We often invite professional dancers to take part in special versions
of Le Concert de Feu.
Le Concert de Feu in Heerlen NL
Reportage
Technical rider (pdf)
« Steady and furious percussion ! »
THE STRAIGHT TIMES, SINGAPORE
Night-time - outdoor or indoor
Duration : 45 or 60 min
Duration : several thousand people
• Parade : 15 to 25 mn depending on the final project
Le Concert de Feu is firstly a drum performance : fire enters the
music, sometimes massive and powerful, sometimes delicate
and subtle. Les Commandos Percu come out from amongst the
audience with their big drums, surrounded by pyrotechnics and
lights effects.
• • • REFERENCES : Singapore Arts Festival (SIN) • Toronto
Winter City Festival (CAN) • Festival les Années Joué • Festival les
Accroche-Coeurs d’Anger • Festival les Virevoltés à Vire • Chelmsford
Festival (UK) • Festival Échappée Belle de Blanquefort • Mot Festival
(MK) • Festival Les Flambarts à Dreux • Festival Les Chromatiques à Fos
sur Mer • Fête des Lumières à Lyon • Festival les Zaccros d’ma Rue à
Nevers • Festival Internacional de Teatro Belo Horizonte (BR) • Salisbury
International Arts Festival (UK) • Festival les Affranchis à La Flèche • • •
(c) K. de Clerck
• Fixed set : 35 min
Coming from amongst the audience, Les Commandos Percu take
the stage and begin an exhilarating rhythmical dialogue with fire.
Shouts from the audience accompany the Big Drum rhythm in an
astonishing final volcanic set.
(c) K. de Clerck

B.P.M. Bombs per Minute
Is destruction a creation?
As an answer to the violence of the world, ‘Bombs per Minute’ attempts to drown the audience in noise and rage with the intention
of reaching peace and silence in the end. A delightful show, a great moment of crushing pyrotechnics.
A clock ticks. Bells toll. Fireworks erupt into the night sky in a continuous, hypnotic flow. The tempo quickens and a torrent of light and
sound is unleashed - a furious and beautiful explosion of energy that sets your pulse racing. As well as being a jaw-dropping display of
pyrotechnic skill, this beautiful choreographed show questions the relationship between violence and creation, and asks us where can
we look to find peace in an increasingly angry world.
BPM in Perth Australie
Reportage in Strasbourg
Technical rider (pdf)
Night-time - outdoor
Duration : 35 min
Duration : several thousand people
« The audience electrified by so much energy spread
out asks for more, a truly heroic performance.»
THE GUARDIAN
(c) MIAIvana Batev
• An apocalyptic opening scene :
The first part of the show starts with a visual and sonorous countdown:
the fireworks clock. The audience feels as if the show has always been
there. With a ticking rhythm, the pyrotechnic effects rise into the sky in
a continuous and hypnotic flow. Hypnotic bells build the pressure. The
tempo goes up minute by minute and leads to an apocalyptic opening
scene.
• The music pulsates a communicative heat :
The second part of the show consists of a series of short but effective
scenes in which the four percussionists turn fire into rhythm and vice
versa. They answer to the crackers (the soloist fire), they make bursting
bangs with the rhythm of sticks, a wha wha pedal of fire plays with
crackling sparks, cymbals explode in the musicians/vulcanologists’ faces.
Violence is only an appearance. The music beats an infectious heat.
The final part confirms that all the fury is a cathartic moment full of
exultation. All this is just a game, the cry of children making fun of an
angry game. After the breaking of sounds and blinding lights, a strange
calm befalls.
• • • REFERENCES : Perth International Arts Festival (AUS)
• Festival Chalon dans la Rue in Chalon sur Saône (FR) • Fest’Arts in
Libourne (FR) • Stockton International Riverside Festival (UK) • Exposition
Internationale Zaragoza (ES) • Ansan Street Arts Festival à Ansansi (KS) •
Festival Internacional de las Artes de Salamanca (ES) • Festival Z’ArtsUp in
Béthune (FR) • Festival des Arts dans la Rue in Strasbourg (FR) • Les Contre-
Plongées de l’Eté in Clermont Ferrand (FR) • Festival de rue de Ramonville
(FR) • Sorties de Bain in Granville (FR) • • •
(c) M. Le Fournier

Les Interventions Mobiles - Annonay France - (c) QuelquespArts
• • • REFERENCES : Goyang Lake-park Arts
Festival (KS) • Lightpool in Blackpool (UK) • Inauguration du
Musée d’Ethnographie in Genève (CH) • Parc Préhistorique
de Tarascon (FR) • Kervénanec : faites le quartier! in Lorient
(FR) • Temps fort de l’APSOAR in Annonay (FR) • Château
de Saint Priest (FR) • Olympiade des métiers de Clermont-
Ferrand (FR) • Le Mans fait son Cirque (FR) • Bodega de
Saint Alban (FR) • Ouverture de saison à La Tranche sur Mer
(FR)• Les Givrés de la Rue à Orcière (FR) • Boules de Notes
aux Ménuires (FR) • Carnaval de Tonneins (FR) • • •
LES INTERVENTIONS MOBILES
ACOUSTIC SHOW
They play everywhere.
The choice is clear: they will go closer to their audience, abolish the stage or, more precisely, use the whole space as a space of
creation.
Les Interventions Mobiles laid the foundation for the company’s history: being an interventionist band, able to surround the public
area no matter what its shape. The choice is clear: they will go closer to their audience, abolish the stage or, more precisely, use the
whole space as a space of creation.
(c) QuelquespArts
(c) X. Boymond
Technical rider (pdf)
Night-time - outdoor or indoor
Duration : up to 50 min
Duration : several thousand people
EXTREME INTERVENTIONS MOBILES
• Illuminated water at the Parc de la préhistoire in Tarascon (FR)
• Official opening of Albi Theater (indoor-outdoor) (FR)
• «Human rafts » at the Perth International Arts Festival (AUS)
• Rappel down in Madrid (SP)
• Show on snow in the French Alps
• Official opening of an industrial site in Trento (IT)
(c) Les Commandos Percu
• Parade : from 25 to 45 min depending on the project
From direct contact with the public to big parades in the city, the huge sound box drives across the city. This human
machine shows off its rhythm and drags the audience along a path punctuated with pyro surprises.
Shouts, drums, sparkles : an exhilarating spiral!
• Fixed set (optional) : 25 min
Absolutely unique, rhythms and pyrotechnics arise with incredible strength blowing the audience away.

WORKSHOPS AND SPECIAL CREATIONS.
The point of doing workshops is to create a large scale performance. The volunteers are trained by Les Commandos Percu to develop
a project from its composition to its concrete fulfillment.
Special creations, original scenographies and specific circumstances are as many parameters that become creative challenges.
• • • REFERENCES • • •
• RUGBY WORLD CUP, Milton Keynes UK, October 2015.
Les Commandos Percu have been joined by a team of eight UK and Milton Keynes based pyrotechnic artists. With the help of Festive Road,
they have been trained to perform in the Clash of Drums, otherwise known as Danbor Talka.
• COAL CHILDREN, Forbach France, 2013, 2014 & 2015.
Gueules Noires : le peuple fier > This performance is an exceptional journey through the life of coal miners and their families in the French area of
Moselle. Former miners participate in this unique show. Artistic direction : Laurent-Guillaume Dehlinger (cie Deracinemoa).
• LA FÊTE DE LA SAINT PAUL, Sarreguemines France, June 2014.
(c) Ville de Noisy le Grand
(c) eventdigital.co.uk
(c) eventdigital.co.uk
Writing with amateurs is an adventurous creation. Through the sharing of expertise and ideas, fire workshops
become an imaginative laboratory. The meeting between artists and the professionals supervising the project
creates an environment in which the sharing of experiences is a priority.
>> FULL INFORMATION PACK TO DOWNLOAD

LES COMMANDOS PERCU
International Street Arts Company
By creating our own instruments, we’re building a proper identity.
After their first performances about 20 years ago with no actual musical instruments, Les Commandos Percu wanted to keep
their mobility and to create a musical repertory that would not borrow other cultures rhythms. Creating their own folklore,
rituals, a language, as if they came from another land.
It’s been more than 10 years now that Les Commandos Percu have been working with Claude Walter from Rythmes & Sons –
Strasbourg through a permanent partnership, a sound laboratory, in order to develop unique and original musical instruments.
The show “On the Night Shift” was a commission for the London 2012 Festival. It presented an original musical composition
played on drums specially drawn and created for this show: the “Satellidrum”.
Energy in motion.
RHYTHM - FIRE - MOTION
Music that speaks to the guts. For more than 20 years, Les Commandos Percu have been creating a new and ancestral language,
that speaks through cultures and genres. They traveled the world with their innovative percussion work and specialized
knowledge of fireworks.
The essential sparkle to the fusion between music and fireworks is movement: street to street, amongst the public, the pyromusicians
enlighten the sky with their rhythms.
«Tchernobyl - an hymn to life made of screams, drums, sparkles and explosions.
Tchernobyl - turning the memory of an absurd disaster into a hymn of life made of screams, drums, sparkles and explosions.
It was a day in April 1986, I had created a nice rhythm by shaking a box of matches when suddenly the disaster was announced on
TV. The next day, this innocent rhythm produced by a box of matches became a massive sound of drums accelerating, culminating
in a final explosion. I wanted to describe a fine and complex molecule of life, when accelerating it became overheated, it turned
into an absurd and destructive smash, then it became deathly quiet. Tchernobyl became a part of Les Commandos Percu’s
repertoire.
Curiously, the outcome is cheerful, lively and pressurized by a tuneful tempo;
almost a love spasm… Besides, in the version of « Le Concert de feu », it is a
great moment of fireworks where we have deployed many strategies to create
“astronomical scenes”, plenty of circles, spirals and trajectories, like a painting
of the starlit sky.
I even believe that we could play this partition… in reverse order! Then, it would
suggest a kind of Big Bang in which the elementary base gets organized round a
pulsation, to end in this fine molecule of life.»
Raymond Gabriel is LCP’s artistic director
Drummer, composer, pyrotechnician, he created the company in 1994.
8 route de Saint Loup
31180 St Geniès Bellevue
Toulouse - FRANCE
Contacts
« Coming from the beginning of time and from the future, Les Commandos Percu remind us that we live
on a ball of fire and that there is no greater sorcery than this fusion of the circle of fire, which removes
the shadows and brings men closer. Giddiness, fireworks of emotions, immediate feelings of touching
the essence of humanity, the spectacles of Les Commandos Percu are a kind of initiation into our human
condition in its terrible and elementary beauty. » GIL PRESSNITZER
(c) D. Saint Léger
LES COMMANDOS PERCU
Mise en scène : Raymond Gabriel
Music - Pyrotechnics : Stéphane Augier, Metty
Bénistant, Raymond Gabriel, Bernard Graell, William
Perez, Ruddy Thery
Tour manager : Vincent Gonzalez
Sound : François Hourtané
Lights : Michel Pradillon
Production : Chloé Aubin, Lisa Trouilhet
+33 (0)5 61 35 00 77
contact@commandospercu.com
INTERNATIONAL BOOKING PARTNERS :
HH Producties - Amsterdam
Tanja Ruiter - +31 616 078 534 /+31 204 082 504
tanja@hhproducties.nl
MUSIC FESTIVALS BOOKING :
Base Productions
Fabristi - +33 608 815 807
fabristi@base-productions.com

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CRÉDIT PHOTO DANIEL SAINT LÉGER
MUSICIENS ARTIFICIERS Stéphane Augier, Metty Bénistant, Raymond Gabriel, Bernard Graell, William Perez, Ruddy Thery
MISE EN SCÈNE Raymond Gabriel LUMIÈRES Michel Pradillon SON François Hourtané
RÉGIE GÉNÉRALE Vincent Gonzalez PRODUCTION Chloé Aubin, Lisa Trouilhet
Press review
DRUMS AT NIGHT, FIRE IN THE SKY.
« An ending with a bang, certainly not a whimper, as fireworks and drumbeats signal a fitting farewell to this year’s Arts Festival.
Concert of Fire, by French group Les Commandos Percu, combined wild percussion and pyrotechnics to provide a fitting end as the
Arts Festival’s closing event. The performers underscored the visual experience with steady and furious percussion. With all kinds of
fireworks shooting every which way above the stage, it was a light show that certainly delighted. ” I’ve never seen anything like it.
It’s really wonderful, it’s better than the National Day !” »
ART AS AN AGENT OF CHANGE FOR DEMOCRACY AND A RISER FOR THE GROUP.
« Four years after their noticed appearance in the official line up of Chalon dans la Rue festival, les Commandos Percu will come back
next summer on 20th-23th July 2011. They were in residence this week in L’Abattoir / International Street Art Center for the creation
of a new show, entitled Destruction! Don’t worry, behind this terrible word hides a pacifist message : “Let’s not close our senses or
our heart, let’s open ourselves to what surrounds us, let’s break all the Berlin Walls that grow around us everyday.” »
PERCUSSION AND FIREWORKS.
« “It’s very simple, why we do this », said artistic director Raymond Gabriel, ” Percussion makes boom, fireworks make boom too ! ”
Each musician pounds away on specially designed drum sets that can spew sparks. But despite the blinding show of light, Raymond
Gabriel stresses that the music comes first. ” The fireworks must be justified by the music.” said Mr Gabriel. ” We are a musical band
first of all, and our music is the common thing that reaches out to everyone.” »
VISUAL TAPESTRY OF LIGHT AND SOUNDS OF DELICATE BEAUTY
« The Bombs per Minute is a french show and its set stood high and proud like a relic from our industrial past set against the night
sky. As the darkness fell, Bombs per Minute began, lightly and softly with an evocative soundscape and beautiful firework display.
I was standing and positioned near the front in full view of the group of burly Frenchmen pounding hand crafted drum kits. With
the utmost precision and timing, they moved through a series of drumming based musical sets integrated with fireworks emitting
from the stage, dustbins, and their drum kits. Mesmerizing and sonically and visually hard core, they took the audience on a journey
driven by the force of pure masculine energy.
Bombs per Minute is for the most part a violent and aggressive spectacle reminiscent of the works of Bow Gamelan, Test Department
and Archaos. This is spectacle for the techo and BPM generation. The show is pure velocity. The genius of Bombs per Minute
was the mirror it holds up to humanity – its revels in our love of aggression and ability to enact violence yet at the same time presents
us with other parts of human nature through its visual tapestry of light and sounds of delicate beauty.»
Medias
DEBBIE LANDER’s blog,
programme director of WE PLAY
the Northwest’s cultural legacy project UK
WWW.COMMANDOSPERCU.COM
CD
Contacts
@CommandosPercu
BPM BOMBS PER MINUTE
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raell
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rtané
aume
LE CONCERT DE FEU live
LE CONCERT
DE FEU
live
Les Commandos Percu
COMMANDOS
PERCU
LES
DVD
LE CONCERT DE FEU
Live au festival Ça bouge encore
Toulouse - September 2002
Content: Le Concert de Feu - film
31’20; Making of 4’27; Clip 4’27;
Album photos 3’14
TEASER ON LINE
DVD BPM Bombs per Minute
TRÈS MÉCHANT(S)
Live au festival Chalon dans la rue
et festival de rue de Ramonville
July - September 2007
Content:Très méchant(s) - film
21’50; Clip 4’06; Diaporama 0’46
TEASER ON LINE
WWW.COMMANDOSPERCU.COM
Graphisme Camille Médus / Impression Loading Zone / Licence : 2-1068757
/ Licence 2-10504 0
POSTER
Dimensions 60 x 40
8 route de Saint Loup
31180 St Geniès Bellevue
Toulouse - FRANCE
+33 (0)5 61 35 00 77
contact@commandospercu.com
INTERNATIONAL BOOKING PARTNERS :
HH Producties - Amsterdam
Tanja Ruiter - +31 616 078 534 /+31 204 082 504
tanja@hhproducties.nl
MUSIC FESTIVALS BOOKING :
Base Productions
Fabristi - +33 608 815 807
fabristi@base-productions.com